Women fleeing abusive relationships could be faced with the stark choice of sleeping on the streets or returning to a violent partner due to the benefit cap a leading charity has warned.

Meanwhile Lord Fraud’s dithering means that many women’s refuges and homelessness hostels may be forced to close when the benefit cap is introduced in July. The cap on benefits, set at £500 a week for families, or £350 for single people, includes housing benefits which in some cases meet the cost of supported accommodation.

Last year Women’s Aid issued a stark warning that this change could potentially close every single one of their refuge’s for those fleeing domestic violence. Homelessness hostels are also under threat. Hostels and refuges charge high rents to pay for the cost of support staff, with most supported housing having 24 hour staffing cover and specialist support workers

Astonishingly neither bungling Lord Fraud or Iain Duncan Smith appeared to know this. In a panicky response the Government hastily u-turned, saying that the benefit cap would not apply to “supported exempt accommodation”. Ministers also claimed that when Universal Credit is introduced, the system of Housing Benefits, administered by local authorities, would remain in place for this type of housing.

well! shaming women into having their babies when they’re, I don’t know, aged 20-24 or something? It’s all about this: Get Britain Fertile. I wish I was kidding. Get Britain Fertile looks like it’s all sponsored by First Response (just in case you thought there wasn’t going to be a corporate angle) and it launches on the 3rd June. One of the ambassadors of the campaign (Kate Garraway) says: “I know careers and finances seem important but you only have a small fertility window. Get prepared first and make informed choices early”. Well said, Kate. She’s forgotten to mention, of course, that there will be no one to help you out with said finances when you can’t afford to feed the child you had to have in that fertility window. But that’s all under the carpet for now. (And, besides, it only applies to them, you know, them there lower class women who don’t count.) Let’s not even start on the pseudo-science upon which this campaign is based. There is no fertility panic. There is no population panic!

What there is, it seems, is a renewed attempt to get women back into the home to free up the workplace for men. Cameron et al have been pushing this for a while (see also the raft of austerity measures which have affected the employment of women to a much larger extent than men). This must be the next step.

2. Because no really manly man wants to settle any question otherwise than by fighting about it.

3. Because if men should adopt peaceable methods women will no longer look up to them.

4. Because men will lose their charm if they step out of their natural sphere and interest themselves in other matters than feats of arms, uniforms and drums.

5. Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them peculiarly unfit for the task of government.